Ronald Colman was a frequent guest on Jack Benny's radio show, where he was supposedly Jack's next-door neighbor in Beverly Hills. A 1946 broadcast had Colman rehearsing his recital of the poem, "If I Were King," only to find himself being drowned out by Jack's violin playing from next door.
Charles Boyer (I) reportedly turned down the lead role.
William Farnum, who plays Gen. Barbezier, starred as Villon in the first film version of If I Were King (1920) in 1920.
One of over 700 Paramount productions, filmed between 1929-49, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since. Its earliest documented telecast took place in Toledo Saturday 3 January 1959 when it was chosen to launch the MCA/Paramount library on WTOL (Channel 11). It first aired in Omaha 29 March 1959 on KETV (Channel 7), in Seattle 31 July 1959 on KIRO (Channel 7), in Chicago 15 August 1959 on WBBM (Channel 2), in Milwaukee 7 November 1959 on WITI (Channel 6), in Asheville 16 November 1959 on WLOS (Channel 13), and in Phoenix 6 December 1959 on KVAR (Channel 12). It was released on DVD 27 May 2014 as part of the Universal Vault Series, and, in recent years, has also been occasionally offered on cable TV on Turner Classic Movies.